


Three Birthday Surprises

by Khashana



Series: Directionverse [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, really this is nothing but fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 11:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/Khashana
Summary: Or, two times Kent's boyfriends surprised him with how much they love him, and one time he surprised them.





	Three Birthday Surprises

**July 2nd, 2020**

The house was full of hockey players. Kent kept getting ambushed by memories of that last barbeque at Jack’s house, the one where he and Jack and Eric had yelled at each other, but then Jack or Eric would round a corner and smile brilliantly at him, or Marty would ruffle his hair, and he was reminded of how much had changed.

Most of the team was there. Some of the players with family in other countries or on the West Coast had gone home for the summer and sent him messages with their regrets and wishes of a happy birthday. Ransom, Holster, and, oddly, March fit right in, laughing and joking and chirping with beers in their hands and their feet up on the furniture. April and May stuck out a little more, having more understated personalities, but they’d found a corner on the deck chatting with Bitty and seemed to be having a good time. But his favorite guests had to be…

“Jeff?” said Kent in surprise from across the deck as he spotted Jack leading in some more people. Then, “ _Jeff!_ Scrappy!” He sidestepped feet and abandoned beer cans and hurtled across the deck, plowing into his old best friends’ arms. “You’re _here._ ”

“Yeah, Parser,” said Scrappy, messing up his hair. “Couldn’t let your birthday just go by.”

“It’s been _way_ too long since I talked to you,” said Kent, voice slightly muffled by the pec he had his face pressed into. He hadn’t spoken to Jeff since before playoffs. Scrappy, even longer. 

“Yeah, man, catch us up,” said Scrappy. 

With a pang, Kent realized that meant he hadn’t told them the most important piece of news. “C’mon.” He pulled them down the steps to the yard, out of earshot of the team, most of whom didn’t know yet either. Jeff knew about the I’m-gone-on-Eric angst and the BPD from that phone call, the day he’d run out of this house naked, and Kent had made an effort to call more often for a while after that, but then playoffs happened and shut everything else down, as playoffs were wont to do. 

He stopped and turned to face them both, unable to keep a happy smile from spreading across his face. “Jack and Eric asked me to be their boyfriend.”

“Holy shit,” said Scraps. “For real?”

Kent nodded. “For real. They made it official last month. We’re driving down to Madison tomorrow and I’m gonna meet Eric’s family.”

“Bro,” said Jeff, “We have got to establish some kind of rule where you _call_ when major life events happen. Stop convincing yourself we don’t want to talk to you.” Kent nodded guiltily. 

“Parser, come on, you know we’re your friends even if we don’t call you all the time, right?” said Scrappy. Ordinarily Kent would have brushed this off, laughed and said _of course_ lying through his teeth, faking normal, but something in Jeff’s expression was bordering on heartbroken, said he knew how much of a lie it would be.

“It’s hard,” he said instead, dropping his eyes. “I—I started seeing a therapist. It’s…it’s not pretty, Scrappy.”

“Aw, Parse. C’mere.” Scraps hauled him in for another hug, and Kent let him. As soon as he let Kent go, Jeff pulled him in instead and Kent laughed a little against his chest. “Actually,” said Scraps as Jeff let go, “this explains a lot.”

“It does?” said Jeff.

“Yeah, man. Didn’t you wonder even a little why Jack Zimmermann and his boyfriend called to arrange a surprise visit for Parser’s birthday? That didn’t seem a little above and beyond teammates to you?”

Jeff shrugged.

“I knew Kent had a thing for Bittle. Just didn’t know it was reciprocated.”

“For real?” said Scraps again, and poked Kent in the forehead. 

“Ow! What are you doing, you fucker?” Kent batted him away, but Scrappy was still talking.

“That’s it, I’m setting a phone reminder to call you once a month. Jeff doesn’t get to be the only one who knows things.”

 

**July 8 th, 2021**

“C’mon, guys, where are we going?” asked Kent.

“Now what kind of birthday surprise would it be if we told you?” admonished Bitty, and prodded his boyfriend in the back to get him to walk outdoors.

“We’re going…to Martinelli’s. …Bowling. …Laser tag,” Kent guessed, staring out of the car window. Bitty rolled his eyes, and Jack smirked.

They parked in a shopping center that wasn’t unfamiliar, exactly, but which they didn’t frequent. Kent stared around.

“Okay. We could be going to the thrift store, the grocery store, the Radioshack, the GNC, the animal shelter—the animal shelter.” He turned and stared at them with wide eyes. “Is—am I right?”

“The animal shelter,” confirmed Bitty, smiling. “Happy belated birthday, honey.”

“Oh my god,” said Kent, and let his boyfriends pull him by the hands into the store. “You already got me stuff—you didn’t have to—”

“Well, we couldn’t do this on your actual birthday,” pointed out Jack. “Did you expect us to just have nothing for you on the fourth?”

“It’s really quite inconvenient of you to be born on the one day I am absolutely expected to be back home in Madison for,” chirped Bitty. He caught Kent’s expression and added quietly. “I’m teasing, hon.”

“I know,” said Kent, but his shoulders relaxed and he squeezed Bitty’s hand anyway.

They walked into the shelter together.

“If you don’t find anyone here, we’ll keep looking, pull up rescue websites or whatever,” said Jack.

“I put my foot down at more purebreds, though,” said Bitty. “There’s no reason to be spending hundreds of dollars on a pedigree when you could give a shelter cat a good home.”

Kent wasn’t listening, though; he was walking from cage to cage, totally enraptured.

“This one’s name is Minunet,” he called over his shoulder. Bitty and Jack followed him and admired the gray tabby.

“Minuet,” corrected Jack.

“No, I know that’s how you say it, but look,” said Kent, and pointed. Sure enough, the sign stuck to the cat’s cage read Minunet.

The second cat’s name was Keebler, and he was a light orange. The third, fourth, and fifth were triplets sharing a cage, who went by Chico, Boots, and Tony.

The sixth cat was black and lithe and named Jellybean, and Kent fell in love.

“Hi,” he cooed at the cat. “Aren’t you gorgeous.”

“Would you like to hold her?” offered a worker, and Kent nodded enthusiastically. The worker let them into the back area and unlocked the cage.

“She’s so small,” marveled Kent, taking her.

“Pretty sure she’s normal sized, bud,” said Jack. “You’re just used to unreasonably large cats.”

“His last cat was a Maine Coon,” Bitty explained to the worker, who laughed.

“Mixed kitties are definitely going to be smaller than Coons. But she’s about a year, near fully grown if not done already.”

Jellybean climbed up onto Kent’s shoulder and perched across them both like a long black scarf.

“I want this one,” said Kent, beaming at his boyfriends.

“If you’re interested in getting a second cat, her brother’s crammed into the corner here,” said the worker, gesturing into the cage, whose door was still open. “Cats do well in pairs.”

“Can I meet him?” asked Kent. The worker extracted a gray and white speckled cat, who had been effectively hidden behind the cat bed.

“This is Sprinkles,” she said, holding up the cat, who mewed pathetically. “He’s not the most social of creatures, but they get along well."

“Oh, isn’t he dear,” said Bitty, reaching out to stroke Sprinkles’ head. “Why not?”

 

They took the cats home, along with a cartful of supplies, and left the cage open in the second guest bedroom with the door closed so the cats would have a chance to get used to everything. Bitty went to cut slices of leftover birthday cake for everyone, and came back to find Jack and Kent kissing lazily on the couch.

“I’ll swap one of you cake for partner,” he said, and they broke apart, Kent giggling and Jack grinning with hearts in his eyes.

“I suppose I can let you have a turn,” said Jack, taking a slice of cake and letting Bitty snuggle in on the other side of Kent to kiss him.

When they were all happily munching on their cake, Kent took the opportunity to say, “Thank you,” in a voice quiet with sincerity.

“You are so loved, honey,” Bitty told him. “You’re very welcome.”

“This feels bigger, somehow, than asking me to move in,” Kent said to his plate. “Getting cats together is like. An entanglement you can’t undo.”

“Good,” Jack said, elbowing him gently. “We don’t want to untangle from you.”

 

**July 4 th, 2022**

Kent and Bitty were sitting in the sun, poolside, while Jack floated on a break between laps when Kent popped the question.

Well, he’ll always insist that he did _not_ propose, thank you very much, but that’s where Bitty and Jack count from, so he’s overruled.

“Would you ever wanna marry me?” he asked casually, and took a sip of his margarita. Bitty dropped his book. Jack just gazed at them.

“It wouldn’t be legal,” he said quietly. “But the ceremony? Calling you both my husbands? Yeah. I would.”

“I started calling you my partners ages ago just so I could quit sayin’ ‘husband and boyfriend’ like you’re not just as important a part of my life,” said Bitty, smiling at Kent. “I’d love to marry you, Kent.”

“And you promise you’re not just saying that ‘cause it’s my birthday?” said Kent, looking at each of them in turn. “Damn, would have been a better idea to wait for tomorrow to ask. But it’s out there now.”

“Promise,” said Bitty, taking his hand. Jack hauled himself out of the water so he could plop down on a cooler and take the other hand.

“Promise,” he echoed.

“I can’t believe you proposed to us on your own birthday,” Bitty chirped.

“This isn’t a _proposal_ , this is _asking about it_ ,” said Kent. “I’m sure somebody’s told me you’re not supposed to spring proposals on people without at least bringing the idea up first. A proposal would involve, like, dinner and a ring and somebody down on one knee.”

“That sounds terribly complicated, logistically speaking,” said Jack. “Are you supposed to have a ring in each pocket? Or what if we wanted to propose? Do we both give you a ring?”

“Jack proposed by accident in the ER waiting room when I brought him an apple,” said Bitty. After two full years of being official and another seven-ish months of being involved before that, Kent did actually know that story, but it still made him laugh.

“So your bar’s low?” he teased. “C’mon, let me spoil you.”

“Propose at dinner and we’ll pretend to be surprised,” Bitty suggested.

“Dinner tomorrow,” Kent bargained. “I can scare up some costume jewelry at least by then.”

“Fine, dinner tomorrow,” Bitty agreed. “Now you better kiss me so I forget.”

“Oh, is that how it works,” said Kent, and he did, though he was grinning too hard for it to work for long.

“Gonna marry you so hard,” he whispered into Bitty’s lips, before Jack stole his own kiss. “So hard.”

**Author's Note:**

> All of the other cats at the shelter are inspired by shelter/foster cats I've met while volunteering and shopping. Jellybean is inspired by a story I read about a shelter worker naming all the black cats Jellybean because it got people to stop and notice the black cats, and they started getting adopted faster. Sprinkles...is a very old in-joke.
> 
> Also, surprise! Kent's DBT specialist has been nonbinary this entire time!


End file.
